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A vagabond's ascent

Our protagonist is of the “vagabond” species. A pretty cool creature, but nothing compared to humans and their inventions. Humans can go eat my sawtooth branch. The world is constructed of floating island. Above and below is the “void” as all call it. Nobody has returned from the void yet, so they’re assumed dead. Are they really dead? Yeah, probably. Travel is hard - it requires flight, cause how else would you get between the floating islands? That means our protagonist’s species, the “vagabond” as I’ve established, can also fly.

Yahazek · Fantasy
Not enough ratings
14 Chs

My new LITTLE PET.

"What are the chances of that?" I noticed a possibility that something very interesting occurred, but there was only one way to test it.

Its head shouldn't be poisonous, I believe.

One leap of faith later I was standing on an invisible rubbery surface. I thrust my blade into it, but it just bounced right off.

"Okay." I emitted some steam from my eyes once more, and got into position.

The plasteel blades, normally white with a very light shade of pink, became more intense in color. The familiar glow, this time pink, filled them and I struck downwards with full force.

A puncture. I only dug the blades a few millimeters into them surface, but that was enough. Since my blades were filled energy, which I've not been suing soaringly at all, I was able to make them expand, tearing the surface a few meters apart.

The next moment I felt lightheaded again - almost no energy left. The blade expansion quickly shattered to dust and disappeared, and at the same time the wound on the creature's skin was healed.

"Haha!! It was enough!" I raised my arm into the air as a celebratory move.

The invisible surface changed in color, or, rather, it finally started reflecting it properly. It looked like regular glass, but it was in fact made of an unknown material. Normal glass ain't soft.

That's one of the countless wandering mirror's defense mechanisms - it shows its shear size by removing the "invisibility cloak" to scare away anything which thought to harm it.

It's a well known fact among the animals, because rumors about it spread everywhere. I didn't expect this too work, since it was just a rumor, but it was worth a shot.

So, how exactly did this happen? Why is the island on top of a wandering mirror?

~~~

The answer is so simple it's stupid. I wanna laugh at myself for taking so long to figure it out.

The wandering mirror, despite its size, is still a creature, so it has a mind of its own. It felt like lowering the altitude at the same time it was going through my poor island, so it just ended up getting stuck on top of its head.

Well, it doesn't really have a head.

Having analyzed the creature's body, I can say it looks more like a tremendously big blob of jelly with tentacles swinging lower than the eye could see.

"It's also empty on the inside, interestingly enough." I'll figure out what that's all a bout at some point.

How long, exactly, will it's reflective properties last? Haah, I don't think I'll be finding that out for another while. In the meantime, I need to eat, like immediately.

"Uuhh, that's bad." I squinted from a sudden wave of pain.

My head still feels like it's on the verge of exploding, and my signs of wear are showing. Can't even stand straight.

Taking heavy steps, I walked back up to the mass of land laying atop the huge beast - a sentence I've never though of before - and tried climbing back up. It was only now that I realized my blades were still back. I ended up shattering them to bits by forcefully filling them with energy, and I now have to somehow make my way up onto the land with my two barely functional legs.

"I'm really brain-dead. Why did I do suck a reckless thing even though I *knew* how little energy I had left." Energy this, energy that; reproaching self for the same thing over and over again wouldn't help.

I looked down to see other source of burning pain, my chest. What I didn't expect find, however, was a gaping hole right in the middle.

"Ahah. Yeah, I did get pierced by a rock at some point during the chaos, didn't I?" I couldn't help but laugh at the realization.

Finally giving in to my inner voice, one telling me to lay down and take a break, I did as instructed. That was, perhaps, the most pleasant plunge to the ground I've felt in years.

My mind disconnected from reality, and with it went away the pain as I finally got my long-awaited sleep break.

If you were wondering - yes, by "little pet" I was referring to the hover jelly.

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